u/SharkToothSandwich

So to start this off, I have no interest in portraits animals ect I only like landscapes

I've found that acrylics are insanely difficult to work with but I've been discouraged by my family, including my sister who was a painter, from using oil because I am "not there yet".

I've been told oil is much harder ect but from what I've seen I wholeheartedly believe that what's been called a drawback is what would allow me to excell.

I've been told acrylics are much easier and much more forgiving ect but the thing is, the fast drying time and such is what makes it near impossible for me to use. The techniques I've learned were literally from oil painters and I can't seem to translate them to acrylics. Plus I truly just don't really want to do acrylics and it's making me lose interest in painting in general.

So, I have had this problem for a while and assume it may be neurodivergency related as I suffer from ADHD.

I seem to get cataclysmic levels of excitement over something - Say I want to get into painting, I'll shop for hours, get super excited/happy, be on cloud nine

Then one thing happens

Small, usually - In the painting example said small thing being told that I wouldn't be able to do oil paint and I should just use acrylic (heavily simplified version)

I am not kidding when I say I had to excuse myself after the conversation ended and I felt so suffocatingly hopeless that I genuinely couldn't stop crying into a pillow, full breakdown. I felt like I was drowning in hopelessness and despair

In a sense it felt like that was my only hope to do good art as I do not have half a lick of interest in any other form due to technique ect

And so it felt like "damn. I really love art but I'll never be able to do what I wanted to to now." Then full blown depressive meltdown.

Does anyone else experience this??

So, some context, I have neurodivergency issues, combined with just not being taught how to respond to basic emotions, especially disappointment.

Now, I seem to live and think in black and white. Everyone u know has told me so. I view things as all or nothing and I don't really have the ability to not do so because it was literally baked into my form of thinking.

I try not to allow myself excitement/hope because the pain of disappointment is so extreme, but it seems to not work very well, so I'm hoping for some advice.

Now, what actually brought this up is:

I've wanted to go to a certain celebration for most of the last few years, even found one of the larger ones. I got really excited because I had a full plan set out and I was happy about this. I found two events I really wanted to hit and had a plan set out, but later found out I'd have to cut it back substantially. And this made me genuinely upset to the point of crying, because as said I don't know how to process certain emotions. Eventually once I forced myself to calm down I tried to just cancel the event entirely because in my mind it isn't worth the cost if I'm not going to do it properly. But my family refused to cancel, however I'm disappointed to a point of not wanting to go because for me it would be easier to cope with the disappointment to do nothing at all then do to it but know it could've been much better.

Before this seems selfish, I will note the entire event was my idea, as it was for my bday. So it's not like I'm like "man, fuck y'all. You should cancel your event cause I don't want to", I just lost interest in celebrating my b'day like that. I figured I'd rather just save the cost than do it half assed, because I don't really have a concept of settling, I'm just like damn, that didn't work out. Let's just not.

So with that out of the way, I'd like to find a way to stop experiencing excitement, as this is a very frequent occurrence for me. Even mundane things like lunch plans falling through hurts to a point of being depressed. It's become such a problem that I have to cut things I think would make me happy/excited about out of my life so that I don't have to deal with the cycle.